As harvesting technologies advance, the harvesting capacity of field crops increase. However, in many types of field crops the moisture content must be removed through a drying process—typically referred to a “curing.” Such a curing process is seen by many as bottleneck in the overall production process of a crop. Therefore, it is desirable to batch process the crop. For example, a typical practice in peanut processing is to load harvested peanuts into a wagon and transport the peanuts to a central location. At the central location, the peanuts are offloaded into large commercial curing facilities and dried to a suitable moisture content—typically less than 10%.
While such a practice enables batch processing, inefficiencies are perceived. The peanuts must be transferred multiple times. For example, peanuts are first loaded into the wagon; then the peanuts are transferred into the curing facility; and then the peanuts are transferred to another container to load into a storage facility. Additionally, the peanuts can only be processed at the remote facility—sometimes requiring undesirable travel distances.
In yet other practices of the peanut processing, the inefficiencies of a crop transfer are reduced by utilization of specially-designed peanut wagons in the field. The peanut wagons have perforated floors. After deposit of the harvested peanuts, the peanut wagons are placed under a cover and warm air is injected through the perforated floors. The consequence of such a practice is the inability to batch process the peanuts. And, as the size of the peanut wagon increases, concern is given to the structural limitations that may exist—e.g., from the increased loading of the wagon. Additionally, an increased size peanut wagon may not be economically feasible or capable of traveling distances to the storage facility. Further concerns include regulations that make it necessary to cure peanuts in batches to maintain the identity of the peanuts until they are sold.